Shared History
by concretebrush
Summary: A slightly AU oneshot of how Joan and Sherlock meet. In other words, Joan's a PI and Sherlock is just a little bit intrigued. Joan-centric.


Disclaimer: The only things I own are feelings about Elementary. (ie. Elementary belongs to CBS and not me yadda yadda).

* * *

They meet like this...

The hospital looms cold and merciless in the half light of winter morning. Weak sunlight glints on the orderly and tidy procession of the panes of glass, behind which, an aura of sickness that has been brutally suppressed under the acrimonious smells of ammonia and sterility and hospital, sits waiting.

She stands by the glass doors, an avenging angel with her white coat and ink black hair fluttering in the wind. The only thing that mars the tableau are her wringing hands, twitching with spasms like trapped birds. This is the only weakness she allows her body to betray.

He runs up the steps, scarf streaming behind him, beanie pulled low over his ears, plaid jacket zipped up to his chin, hands in his pockets and a look of severe concentration on his face. The only weakness his body betrays, is a slight downward wrench of his lips.

Their eyes meet over the mangled corpse delicately contorted on the concrete, limbs splayed in a gruesome facsimile of an innocent sleeper, the man is on his side with hands tucked under head, and a Glasgow smile curling across the frozen face.

She looks away first, fidgeting imperceptibly in discomfort. While he shakes off the glance with a shrug and returns to his perusal of the crime scene.

Within two minutes he has reached what he deems a satisfying conclusion.

"Gregson! We're looking for a male, six-one, around two hundred pounds. The perpetrator fancies himself _an artist, _he's lampooning us our fundamental human needs."

And with a mocking salute, he dashes away from the attending officer, in as rushed a state as he was when he first flew in, kind of like a whirling dervish perhaps? she wonders inanely. She spins a circle on what now resembles to her, a dais displaying the dead. It is as stomach turning, visceral a funeral pyre as any that ever existed in the annals of history, she thinks.

(This is the first time they meet but it isn't a revelatory moment for either of them. That comes a few years and many arguments later.)

She turns her attention from the strange man with the British accent and back to the sanguinary picture painted before her in crimson and death. She cringes just a little, used to as she is, the sight of blood and uncovered organs, humanity's brutality is still a magnitude too hard for her to swallow.

"Ma'am, Ma'am!"

Someone gestures for her attention, and then suddenly she has a shock blanket tucked around her. She thinks to herself wryly that this is a very inauspicious beginning to the first day back after sabbatical.

She doesn't know how accurate she is.

That same day, for the first time, a patient dies on her operating table.

* * *

She finds her niche on the PI scene after a run-in with an old classmate. He tells her about this "real weird story, man, that detective really pulled me out of a tight spot. If he hadn't helped who knows where I'd be now?"

She is intrigued and after all those months floating aimlessly (and let's be honest, desolately), she's finally found what she equates to a calling.

She sets up shop on a seedier part of New York City and business starts off slow. She looks for misplaced wallets and runaway pets. She deals will mothers sending their sprog with a few crumpled dollar bills asking where they should start looking for a missing grandfather. Or middle aged ex-cons wondering if she could run a background check on their daughter's new boyfriend, "dude is _shady, _I tell you. I wanna know if he got a lot of time in the bighouse...if ya get me. If I knock this one's teeth out, my lil girl won't talk to me again."

But she's got years of training in med school and as an operating surgeon and she can certainly pick up faint trails and subtle details thank you very much.

And then when she investigates a missing teenager and linked it back to an up and coming senator, her name becomes one splashed across the papers, and her clientele explodes.

It's one year later, and she's in the big leagues. She has contacts in the mayoral offices, friends on the police force, and a very pretty list of successful jobs. She has washed her hands of petty domestic clashes and starts solving cases the police haven't even gotten wind of. Quiet yet intricate mysteries about possible poisonings, and staged suicides and lost heirlooms and she feels alive again.

If she were telling the truth, she would say that it's a surprise she has healed so soon after ostensibly taking a life. The resilience of the human soul, she thinks, is quite a miraculous thing.

* * *

The second time she meets him they start arguing in the waiting room of the local police station.

She's regressed to yelling and he's glaring at her as petulantly as a grown man can. Gregson, who she finds out is the voice of authority around these parts, ends up having to step in.

She's just lost a lead because of his meddling and she is _fuming_.

He's irritated he got to the lead _after _someone else.

Gregson pinches the bridge of his nose at general PI shenanigans and the now normal shenanigans of the resident consultant.

"Well, why don't you two work together?"

"Ha."

"As if."

Gregson shrugs, "I just want this solved as soon as possible. I don't know how a missing will is related to the Greenberg serial murders but I want to find out. And if the best way is teamwork, I and the city would really appreciate your doing so."

She glowers at him.  
He scowls at her.

"If she wants to."  
"If he's willing."

(Neither are about to admit it but they are both sort of stuck. It _is _a rather enigmatic case.)

And that was that.

He found her extensive medical expertise beneficial.  
She found the easy way which he deduced mesmerizing.

He sees a much more expedient use of his abilities in the environment of a PI, and in the context of this 'teamwork' business. (And the unexpected joy at imparting a great passion of his upon an inquisitive listener is no less appealing.)  
She has an established network and thinks a partner could certainly come in handy. (Working with him has also been the most fun she's had in years.)

* * *

"I'm Joan Watson."  
"Sherlock Holmes."

And the rest as they say, is history. (Or in this case _their_story.)

* * *

Fin.


End file.
